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Thursday, 18 February 2010

Zilli Green, Soho - Not Just For Veggies

Lord knows that I'm not a vegetarian, though I'm not averse to the odd meat-free day. But when it comes to eating out, vegetarians generally get a pretty raw deal, with one to no options in most cases.

This vexes me particularly as I'd been tasked with organised our works Christmas lunch, which turned into a New Year lunch, which turned into a Chinese New Year lunch, and two of our party are strict vegetarians (rather than wishy-washy "I am a veggie, though I do eat fish" types). For once I want us to go somewhere where they'll be able to choose anything off the menu rather than be stuck with the one pappy risotto.

Vanilla Black seems an obvious candidate, but to be honest is too close to our office for comfort. In the end, someone suggests Zilli Green in the heart of Soho, a new vegetarian restaurant from Aldo Zilli (on the site of Signor Zilli), which is opening just this week. Perfect, I think and so I book.

It's tipping it down when we get there, but we see Signor Zilli himself on the steps chatting to a girl before going inside.

The nine of us shake off the rain and walk through the door, where he greets us all briskly and tells us to "follow our noses" to the room downstairs.

There's a long wooden trestle table laid out for us in a surprisingly small basement, and we're sandwiched between the kitchen and the loos. Half of us are on chairs, the other half on a bench. I already feel a twinge in my back.

As we sit down, we see Signor Zilli appear again and personally serve a neighbouring table with aplomb. I explain to my colleagues that he's the Zilli of Zilli Green and one of them asks me why he isn't dressed in whites. I say "A lot of celebrity chefs haven't seen a kitchen in years" and she grumbles and says he ought to be wearing a toque at least.

There are bottles of olive oil on the table, apparently made on Aldo Zilli's own estate. No bread appears for dipping however, and one of my colleagues asks jokingly if we're meant to drink it.

What we do drink is the fresh juice of the day, which happens to be apple and strawberry. It's obviously blended to order and incredibly delicious, but at £4 a pop, so it should be (bear in mind that the food is at Wagamama prices).

As for the food menu - it's attractive even for a meat freak like me, so it's no wonder my veggie colleagues are bubbly with anticipation - for the first time in a long time they're stricken with choice paralysis.

I'm rather sad to find that the Cheese Burger with Chips & Salad featured on the online menu is missing - I was hoping someone would order it and it would turn out to be a slab of cheese in a bun.

In fact there aren't any chips at all on the menu, save something called Artichoke Chips with Harissa. So we order those too, along with Rosemary Roast Potatoes and Roman Caesar Salad & Grilled Halloumi.

The waiter clears away everyone's used cutlery save mine. I pout a little at this and as I fret I suddenly notice that Queen's "Thank God It's Christmas" is playing in the background. I mention this in the waiter's presence and he says with embarrassment "Oh, it's because it's an iPod on shuffle - I'm very sorry". We say "It's okay, this was meant to be a Christmas lunch" but it's still a tad weird.

He returns and puts down fresh cutlery for everyone, except me - he just takes my old knife and fork and puts them either side of my place setting. I pout some more and consider complaining and then worry about my carbon footprint and decide I can cope.

Oddly, the side dishes arrive first. Artichoke chips is a complete misnomer as these are much more delicate than that name would suggest. They're lightly battered and fried like tempura, and are the most delicious thing I eat all day.

The "harissa" dip I could do without, as it just reminds me of eating dodgy merguez at Rock En Seine.

The rosemary potatoes are flabby but more-ish, but the salad no more than functional with flavourless squeaky halloumi.

The leek and almond ravioli is a winner - deftly made pasta with a deep, savoury filling and intense artichokey sauce (yes, I pinched some).

The portion may seem a mite stingy, but the flavours are rich enough to compensate.

The souffle is apparently tasty, and seems accurately risen and fluffy.

It's such a dreadfully sludgey shade of green though, I daren't even ask for a bit.

My own truffle lasagne is fantastic - like a decadent macaroni cheese. The truffle may not be visible, but its heady flavour and aroma punctuates every bite.

As for the spaghetti, the pasta is the perfect texture and the sauce has clearly been made with flavoursome, ripe tomatoes. The aubergine just makes me snigger though, as they look just like chip-shop fishcakes.

In the background, the playlist has moved onto Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits, interspersed with the odd bit of Coldplay. I briefly wonder whose iPod it is and whether I can smash it.

A colleague pops to the loo and comes back looking rather hunched. I ask what's the matter, so she says "See for yourself" and I find myself in a Hobbit hole with a curved ceiling almost grazing my head - and I'm only 5' 4". Even less conducive to a peaceful bio break is the sign on the door entreating me to "learn to cook with celebrated Chef Aldo Zilli".

Dessert seems essential and so we ask for the menu. We peruse the intriguing offerings, but when we're ready to order, there's no-one to be found. We make small talk and wait for a bit, before a colleague asks "What's happened to our service?" A member of staff appears, but he's wearing his coat and clearly about to leave. This is not good.

When they arrive, I'm taken aback by how authentic my cheesecake is and I urge everyone to try some. The base is strangely coconutty but I quite like that and, although any limoncello is overpowered by the sharp berry sauce, it's still seems a sound interpretation. After a while however, maybe it's psychological but the intrinsic, spooky tofu-ness begins to creep through and I struggle to finish.

The chocolate brownie is a little too dry, but rich and cocoa-ey, and the "ice cream" is pleasantly velvety.

As a whole, the dish works well together and I suffer a bit of plate envy.

The tiramisu is the least convincing of the three desserts and is extremely unlikely to pick anyone up.

Stodgy and airless like a kept trifle, it appears dairy-free is definitely not the way forward in this case.

As I'm poking at my tofu cheesecake, a colleague at the end of table suddenly asks "Why has my coat been on a journey?".

I look up and see him looking reproachfully at a member of staff who is holding said coat. The man blushes and says "We have a system for storing belongings and your coat was assigned to the wrong table". Actually, we'd hung our own coats up and it's not really surprising that we hadn't noticed the hand-numbered sticky labels:

By the end of the meal, I'm well and truly stuffed, and despite some issues, I'm pretty much won over. And although I think the more carnivorous of my colleagues feel a little shortchanged, the vegetarians at least seem as satisfied as I am.As we walk away, they tell me that they really do like the place and that they'll definitely come back, but only with other vegetarians, and I protest and say to them that they can count me in too.

18 comments:

Wow. Another brilliant post. You've even managed to make it look appealing to me - someone for whom a meal is only a meal if it has meat in it. I'm generally with you on tofu, whose taste and texture I can't stick - crisping the outside must take some doing and how they get flavour into it with a marinade? Clearly they know what they're doing.

Really interesting review. I must admit to having been slightly cynical about the concept, but it seems that Zilli has more or less come up trumps. A useful one to know about for die-hard veggie friends, for sure.

Every time the name Zilli is mentioned lethargy overcomes yours truly. Your review might gain some kind of salvation, I shall put my prejudices aside and visit this place at some point. Great review, cheers.

Lovely and comprehensive write up. I have a staunchly vegetarian friend who will be returning shortly from a self imposed exile in Oz. I look forward to supplying more options than just Saf and Green and Black!

excellent review and the photos are particularly good. i shall be taking my dearest girlfriend there forthwith. and i do enjoy watching veggies having the "but...but...i can order *anything* on the menu..." dilemma

ooh you were quick off the mark with that place, are you auditioning for Dos Hermanos?!

I really like trying out veggie places, it's usually really interesting to see what they're doing, I really like Saf much to my surprise, thought Vanilla Black sucked quite badly, very up its own bum. Got my eye on that vegan Japanese place by King's Cross as well as this one ;)

If you're ever looking for other options there's a vegetarian restaurant called 'Rootmaster' in a converted Routemaster bus in the Old Truman Brewery at Spitalfields. Not cheap but good fun.

Good work (again!). I am one of those wishy washy types that eats fish but not meat, but always good to have a fully veggie option too. Mr A Zilli seems to have passed me by somewhat but may investigate this place next time I'm in the big smoke.